A Moving Campaign for Prospect Leases and Resident Renewals

Moving is SUCH. A. HASSLE.  Many of us are guilty of bouncing from place to place when we’re young and carefree.  Roommates come and go, jobs change, or you level up to your first adult apartment or into a 55+ active adult community.  There are a million life changes that can make it feel like it’s time to move.  At the end of the day, moving is expensive and takes a ton of time out of your schedule.  Minimizing this pain point for both prospects and residents through a moving campaign can boost your leasing and occupancy trends.  This two-pronged marketing campaign will show you easy strategies to overcome that moving objective and keep your residents happily renewing.

Prospects: Overcome Moving Objectives

Prospects who are out looking for apartments can quickly become overwhelmed by the realities and cost of moving.  It’s no picnic!  If your prospects are on the fence about moving in, there are ways you can tip the scales in your favor to close the sale. 

The Cost of Moving Objective

Structure your leasing incentives to waive upfront fees like admin or security deposits.  By reducing the financial friction at moving time, the move becomes an easier sell.  To really up your moving campaign, partner with a local moving company to create an exclusive package deal for your apartment community or offer to cover the moving service cost!

The Hassle of Moving Objective

If your community wants to cover that fee, that’s even better for the prospects.  It’s likely you already have a few preferred moving companies that you always work with.  To really make it a white-glove service, you could handle the logistics, payment and elevator scheduling for the prospects to make the move completely seamless for them.  Moving complete!

Marketing Your Moving Campaign

Now that you’ve got your moving incentives lined up, how to get the word out?  Customized email marketing works well for your existing prospect pipeline. 

• Use bullet points to focus your copy on all the ways you’re saving your prospects – time, money, stress.  Everyone is into less stress in 2021!
• Tally up a dollar figure that you are saving them and add that to the headline.
• With COVID-19 considerations on everyone’s mind, let them know that your moving company understands the situation and will take care of their move in a professional and appropriate manner.

As you mine through your prospect pipeline, focus in on prospects who toured your community 9 months ago and didn’t rent.  They are likely coming up for a lease renewal at their existing community and could be tempted to give your property another look!

To cast a wider net, expand your prospect reach with geotargeted social ads.  The advertising creative should convey a carefree move and people enjoying their new apartment.  Be sure to use your prospect data to determine where people typically move from to your community.  A geofencing campaign can target exact competitor properties or a simple five-to-ten mile radius around your community.  The more targeted the prospect, the more customized the ads can be.  zipcode creative can help you craft that ideal prospect and the digital ads to connect with them online. 

Residents: Using the Hassle of Moving to Secure Renewals

Staying at home for the last year during COVID may have pushed some residents to an understandable level of cabin fever.  To make sure they resist that siren call of moving, design a simple renewal campaign focused on facts about moving and a dose of resident appreciation.

Armed with your moving costs data, repurpose that to use with your residents when they are hesitant about renewing.  You can present the information on a flyer with the key cost savings achieved when they decide to renew.  Pretty up the data in an infographic.  Data points are much easier to digest as an infographic and zipcode creative is a pro at these!  When it’s time for those renewal letters to go out, attach the flyer or graphic and personalize it with a note saying that you would love for them to stay at your community.

To focus on boosting that resident retention number, add a small renewal incentive to your campaign.  Craft a catchy title like “Renew & Refresh”.  Create a list of upgrades you could offer in their apartment as their renewal incentive.  The easy upgrades like carpet, paint, ceiling fan installs or enhanced countertops still apply.  Also, get creative and add some online features like a fun subscription box service to receive each month or pet-sitting gift card they could use over the next year.  Doordash delivery for their favorite restaurant or instacart grocery delivery work wonders as resident perks.  Residents can choose the offer they like and enjoy their space even more.  The idea is to have people be more invested in their apartment so they are more likely to stay. 

A Moving Campaign that Swings Both Ways

It can be easy for your property teams to get distracted and focused only on the next wave of move-ins.  But, a truly balanced approach to prospect and resident lifecycles allows you to make marketing campaigns that resonate with both audiences at the right time.  Moving is the common denominator facing your entire prospect and resident base.  By facing this daunting task head-on with a few manageable data points, timely communications and applicable incentives, you can minimize this hurdle and keep both prospects and residents where they need to be – at your property!

Images in this post are ©Fairfield Residential  |  Work executed by Stacey Feeney, owner of zipcode creative, while under creative direction and employment at Fairfield Residential.